Kiwi and Strawberry
by sean the master
Summary: I thank Psycho's pet for allowing me to continue his story   Disclaimer: I dont own bleach
1. Chapter 1

Wait where am I? Last i knew i was in the soul society killing hollows but now i had no clue where i was or how long i was there. I knew one thing i must escape. Then out of the blue a hollow open the cell i was in. I dont know what it wanted and i didn't want to find out, so i ran off before finding out what it wanted. hollows began coming out of no where. i pulled out what appeared to be a machete, but it was three times bigger than a normal machete. I must have grown because i am 6"1' and must not be wearing my capitain haori i have blondish brown hair. I have forgotten everything about my past. I just know to keep running for my life.


	2. Chapter 2

After the winter war, Nel actually went through a lot. Though none of them needs to be said for none are important, she was now the ruler of what the resident hollows called the "White Plateau." And as such, she wore some garments like a ruler should. She wore her previous Espada uniform, which she had her tailors fabricate. But aside from that, nothing was different.

And so was her attitude. "Itsygo!" she shouted like a child and jumped on him. And he gawked at her like the last time she hugged him as the terrorizing bear hug came.

Ichigo, however, didn't let himself be knocked out like the last time. This time, he gently pushed her away. She was confused by his action and thus had a look at him. And she shrieked when she saw the horns on both side of his head. "I-Itsygo, what are those?" she asked, pointing at them.

He, confused by her reaction, touched where she pointed and found that he had the horns. The horns that almost killed Uryu and Ulquiorra. His face cringed at the memories. He didn't need to remember them. So he thought he should change the subject. "So, Nel, how's Hueco Mundo?" he asked her. "And is that actual clothes you're wearing?" he asked, teasing her slightly. She blushed at that. Last time, she only wore rags that her child version always wore. She pouted.

"Yes, it's actually clothes that I am wearing," she said, feigning a surprise. "So ... are you ...?" she began but didn't get the courage to ask.

He nodded, knowing what she going to ask. "I am an arrancar."

"I-I'm sorry," she said, for she knew that he had a family in the world of living.

He made a sad smile. "It's alright. They can always go on without me," he said as he got up. "Now," he said and turned to the ... escort behind her. "What happened to you?"

She grinned mischeviously at that. "Well, I'm a Queen now," she said with a grin.

"A ... Queen?"

"Yup! Barragan, the former Segunda, was the former King of Hueco Mundo. We always had any kings ruling over this world. That was until Aizen showed up. So I made myself the Queen of the White Plateau," she said proudly.

"Were you always that strong?" he asked.

"Nope... don't you remember me as a child?" she asked. He nodded. "There!"

"Okay ... then... now what?" he asked her.

"I don't know. I just found you here after I sensed a really big burst of reiatsu. But now that I know it's you, I'm okay!"

"... It's not stable," he said, his brain getting to work as he pieced in all of her actions and reactions.

"I'm sorry?" she asked.

"Your kingdom. It's not stable, is it?" he asked her.

She grew quiet and slightly depressed. "No," she said.

Ichigo sighed. Her reactions when she saw his horns, they weren't hers. She was under a lot of pressure, he could tell that much. Especially the dark bags under her eyes and the paleness of her skin. "You need a hand?" he asked her.

Her face immediately brightened up. She smiled. "Really?" she asked, her voice hoping.

"Yes," he smiled.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!" she said energetically like her old self. "I can't wait to show you around the city-"

"Wait, there's city in Hueco Mundo?" Ichigo asked, surprised.

"There's wasn't any in the beginning, just rocks and such. But then Aizen showed up Las Noches and now we learned to built houses similar to Las Noches and the buildings inside it," she said. "Of course, I gathered ones like me into the city," she said.

"Ones like you...? I'm guessing arrancars?" he asked her and she nodded. "But how did you find them? I thought that you needed the Hogyoku to do that," he said. "And Aizen has both of them in himself."

She cringed. "That's sick," she muttered.

"I guess."

"It looks like that hollows are taking off their mask themselves... I bet you did that too," she said. "Though it doesn't seem like you did it for power. You did it because being a hollow was too much for you, wasn't it?" she asked.

He frowned. What she had told him was right. Being a hollow was too much for him. He rather be an arrancar. Thankfully, he was born a Vasto Lordes, or reincarnated, whatever you want to call it. Ichigo was grateful of that because had he not been born a vasto lorde, then surely he would've been weak and fragile.

She noticed the pain on his face.

"Come on, I'll show you the city," she said as she and the escorts used sonido. He stared at the open space and then to the corpse that he had created. He felt sick and disgusting. He sighed before he follow after them with sonido.

He quickly caught up to her, surprising her with a growl. "So how far away is this city?" he asked her.

"We're here," she said and stopped. He tried to stop himself too, but his speed must've been too much for him, for he rammed straight to a thick wall, head first.

Nel and her escorts stared darkly as he tried in vain to pull himself out. Then they began to laugh when they realized that he got himself stuck in there. Nel didn't laugh. Instead, she went to his side and helped him get out.

"Thanks. I guess I'm still not used to this body," he said.

"It's no issue. Everyone has and some still have the same problem as you," she said. "Now, this is our city," she said as they all walked over to the right and found a gate there. Ichigo looked up to the edge of the wall as the rest of them got into the city. The wall of this city must be at least some ten stories high and at least four yards thick. He could feel the strength of it. This ... was a large fortress.

"Ichigo!" Nel shouted over to him. He snapped back into attention. "Come on," she giggled.

He smiled. "Alright..."

Nel's city reminded Ichigo deeply of a Mediterranean coast city. Ones like Venice and Florence. And like Venice, this city even had large, deep and wide waterways! It was a wonder how this place was made.

Apparently, this city was built on a small hill, so the 'palace' at the top of the hill -which looked more and more like Las Noches to Ichigo- stood out amongst the city's other buildings. There was a lot of arrancars here, even some vasto lordes, which was quite a surprise to Ichigo.

Nel giggled.

Ichigo looked at her. "What?" he asked her.

"Oh nothing. I remembered that someone you know very well is among my city's residents," she said. "He lives near the center of the city," she added.

"Huh. Who is it?" he asked, quite curious.

"Yo, Strawberry!" a familiar growl came to Ichigo. Ichigo looked up without much emotion in his eyes to the man standing on top of a five story building, an average height for a building in Nel's city.

It was Grimmjow.

"Long time no see, Kurosaki," he said as he drew his zanpakuto. "Let's have some-"

"No."

Grimmjow looked stunned by Ichigo's answer. "Wha?" he questioned.

"I don't want to fight you, Grimmjow," he said. "Besides, we already know who is stronger," he added.

Grimmjow flinched. "Fuck you," he said as he pushed his zanpakuto back into its scabbard. "What brings you here anyway, Ichigo?" he asked. Ichigo looked at him as if he was a idiot. "Can't you see this?" Ichigo asked him as he pointed to his mask fragments, which were mainly his horns.

The teal hair just stared. "Ah..."

"Well, I think you know Grimmjow, who is my General," she said. "Simply because he was the former Sexta Espada and he almost won against you."

"Nel~!" Grimmjow growled angrily.

She giggled again. "I'm just teasing you," she said. She turned to Ichigo with a smile. "Come on, we're near the palace if he came out this far," she said.

- 


	3. Chapter 3

Ichigo stood in front of a tall door. They were brown and painted with many other colors, making it seem like a rainbow. A sweatdrop fell from his left temple. He turned to Nel who had flowers floating about her. Looking at this rainbow colored door must really make her feel good.

"Did you paint this?" he asked her.

"Me? Oh no! The children did it!" she said.

"Children...?" he repeated.

"Yup! Most of them are small but there are some teenagers here and there," she said with a grin. "We found out that arrancars could, in fact, have children," she said. "Just like the shinigamis," she added.

Ichigo looked at the doors as Nel's escorts opened them, revealing a large hallway.

It wasn't just the hallway. No...

Statues, guards, servants, gentlemen, ladies, and every other thing you would expect to find in a court, they were all there.

Ichigo sweatdropped as the attention of the court turned to him.

Actually it was to their queen, Nel, not him. And as such, they knelt/bowed immediately. And Nel, unlike her usual self just walked pass by them. This kind of irked Ichigo. Nel accepting bows and kneels. Not cool.

HEY, since when did he use phrases like not cool?

Back to reality, Ichigo still disliked it. Maybe it was because he wasn't used to being bowed to and instead picked up for fights. So without saying anything, he followed after her, only to be blocked by arrancar guards wearing white uniforms that reminded Ichigo of 19th century military uniforms.

"Who are you?" the taller of them growled at him.

"Me? I'm Nel's-"

"You will not state her Highness as if she was a commoner!" the shorter of the guard shouted. Then, they forced him back out, and attempted to close the door. But no, Ichigo would'nt have it. Especially not after being talked down to. He sonidoed into the court, causing the crowd to scream and the guards to become alert of his presence. "You son of a -!" one of the guards began but he stopped when Ichigo's big hand grabbed his face and shoved him down to the floor. Ichigo hit the ground with such a force that the ground beneath Ichigo caved in.

This made Nel's attention turn to him, and her eyes widened as she saw the whole scene happen. Right after she saw one of her guard hit the ground, she shouted. "Stop!"

All of the men and women turned their attention to her, everyone except Ichigo and the concussion-received guard. He slowly straightened up, leaving the guard on the floor.

He just ... reacted like that.

He wasn't this violent or nasty, he just reacted.

Ichigo's eyes were wide with shock and fear of himself. Nel could see it clearly.

"I'm sorry for not telling you about him earlier, but Kurosaki Ichigo here, is our guest," Nel announced publicly. The crowd turned back to the said man and got scared. He had such dangerous pair of eyes, eyes that threw daggers at anyone who saw them.

From their point of view, it was either the emergence of a true demon or a savior.

Ichigo, however, took no notice of this and had all his attention of Nel.

"Why couldn't tell them faster?" he asked her, angrily.

A shiver went up her spine. "I-I'm sorry..."

"Geez," he groaned. He then turned to the unconscious guard. He picked him up and then turned to the second guard. "Where's the infirmary?" he asked him. And the guard, frightened as he was, showed him the way and Ichigo followed after him, leaving a court full of scared nobles, wealthies and generals. But even amongst them, there were those who did not.

A man with black snake eyes and white hair chuckled. "What a sad excuse for an arrancar," he said, mocking Ichigo from his back. "He can't even control his own rage."

"You're no person to mock him, Sir Fin," a noble came up to the said general. Fin, General of Defense, turned to see his friend and groaned.

"What do you want from me this time, Katesen?" he asked the other noble.

Katesen was an ancient arrancar who existed before even Aizen made his first appearance in Hueco Mundo, much like Starrk. He was sort of a legend, having evaded Aizen's forced recruitment for so long and doing so with the slightest effort. He was also, however, a powerful 'demon' who ran amok, killing anything in sight. The rumor has it that Nel defeated him on a dual and he joined her side as her kingdom's lower noble.

Katesen just merely bowed, slightly, and smiled. "I want nothing from you, Sir. I have merely pointed out something you should remember."

Fin growled.

"Now, easy does it. I've come here to ask you on our ... plans," he said as he ruffled with one of his pockets.

Then he took out ... A pack of gummy worms.

And he began eating.

The anger in Fin's eyes disappeared immediately, and he began to stutter. "R-Right!" he muttered.

Nel sat at the throne in the large court and greeted many nobles and others who came by her throne to pay their respect to her.

After a while, Ichigo came back, still dressed in shihakusho rags that he had worn since ice age.

"Oh, Itsygo!" Nel said cheefully. "I just found out that there was a room that you can use while you are staying!" she said.

"I won't be staying for long," he said to her, making her give him puppy eyes that he deflected with a sunglass.

'Wait, where did he get the sunglass? Ah, he just took one from the nearby noble...' Nel thought, noticing that the said noble was trying to find his sunglass on the floor.

"You should give that back now," she said and he did. "Why won't you stay?" she asked.

'"... I don't know. I got things to do, that's all..." he said. "Like maybe telling my family that I'm okay..."

Nel's eyes widened. Ichigo looked into them and saw sadness. Was it because he was leaving? "Why, are you said that I am leaving? It's only for a while."

"Ichigo," she said solemnly, catching his full attention. "Ichigo... you've been gone for a century," she said. And as she feared, his eyes widened. "All of your families... they're dead."

- 


	4. Chapter 4

Ichigo ran in the darkness and black void that is the Garganta.

He ran as fast as his legs could carry him without having him fall through the void below.

And his mind was running as fast as his legs were. It was filled with rejections, denials and fears. He couldn't believe that his family was dead. He doesn't even know what happened to them. They can't be dead.

Similar thoughts ran through his mind over and over again as he ran towards the end of the void.

He reached it.

With a bala, he broke the entrance and jumped out of the darkness and into the light.

Actually, he ran straight into a car.

"Fuck!" he shouted as he shot out of the way. He skid across the air, feeling confused. He was sure that he made the garganta so that the coordinates on Earth would be very near his house but way above in the atmosphere. Something was off. Was it his calculations or did something happen over the century?

He turned around to see the car go by and he noticed that... it was flying.

Hovering to be exact.

It gawked at it.

So did the driver at him.

"Hollow!" he shouted and pressed a button on his car.

"Huh?" Ichigo said. "You can see me?"

"Of course I can, you idiot!" With that, the driver flew away.

Ichigo took this time to take in the surrounding around him.

The city that he had been born to was completely changed out of its original shape. Hundreds of Skyscrapers, hover cars of different altitude, and other things that you would see only in the future. "Oh..." he muttered. "I guess I really have been gone for a long time," he said.

"Bakudo 30, Shitotsu Sansen!"

Ichigo whirled around just to see three beam of light pierce his chest, arm, and leg. And he then, he couldn't move.

And from some distance, he saw shnigamis coming towards him with their zanpakutos drawn. Some had it released.

'Oh.. so that's what that button was... shinigami caller...' he chuckled at the name that he gave the button that the driver had pushed with all his might. And they got here pretty quick. But if he was a real savage hollow, then the driver would be dead by the time they got here. They were slow as always.

"It's an arrancar!" the lead shinigami shouted as she screeched to a halt in the air along with all the others. This shnigami looked somewhat familiar...

Ichigo had no time to think through, for they were preparing to transfer him to Soul Society by the looks of it.

With tiny portion of his raw strength, he broke the kido apart and did what his body told him to.

He put his hand up on his face and pulled it down.

And his mask came out.

Wait, what?

Wasn't he... um, arrancar, not Vizard? He thought about this. But here was the mask, on his face like it was when he was a vizard. What was going on here?

But then, his train of thought stopped, for he was forced to protect himself from Zabimaru like zanpakuto. Except this zanpakuto had a hammer at the end.

Ichigo deflected the blow with a swat, and when it came back again, he grabbed it and pulled the owner of the zanpakuto close to him with a great - pathetic on Ichigo's point of view - yank. It was the lead girl.

"WAAAHH!" she wailed as he pulled her into his arms and he grabbed her neck with a single hand.

She began choking. Surprised by the strength of his grip, he loosened it tiny bit, allowing her to breath. The other shinigamis were slow to approach him with her in his hand.

Ichigo stared at her face. Something about her made him feel awkward and wrong. What was this?

"You," he said.

"What, hollow?" she growled.

"Who's your parents?" he asked.

"...Wah-?"

"Your parents. By chance is one of them Byakuya?" he asked.

"H-How do you know my father?"

Ichigo groaned. Of course, that emotionless face. This girl had one exactly like him. He released the girl's neck. The shinigami turned to retaliate. "Idiot-!"

Her zanpakuto, however, ended up flying into the sky and when it came down, Ichigo caught it.

"I can't believe your that emotionless fart's daughter," he said with a groan. "I can't WAIT to see what happens to me once he finds out about this," he said, sarcastically.

She immediately shunpo'ed some distance away. "...W-Who are you?" she asked.

"Ichigo. Just tell that to your father," he said as he opened a garganta and left the place.

"Wait! You can't leave with my zanpakuto!" she shouted at him.

"Then tell me your name," Ichigo said as the garganta began to close.

She growled a bit before she answered. "Kuchiki San!" she replied.

Ichigo smiled, causing the girl to flinch for some reason. Then he gently tossed her her zanpakuto just as the garganta came to a close with a loud and deafening slam. She caught it and stared at the space at where Ichigo was last seen.

Wounded Pride.

"You'll pay for this, arrancar..." she hissed under her breath before she called for a messenger. A messenger immediately came to her. She turned to him. "Arrancar attack in Inner Karakura Town, just outside Kurosaki Hospital. Claims its name is Ichigo. Extremely strong. Mostly likely a vasto lorde level arrancar. End report."

- 


	5. Chapter 5

Ichigo once again ran through the garganta, but this time, he knew his world was gone, replaced by a new one. All his doubts dispelled by that brief moment. He no longer belonged in the Living World nor the Soul Society.

He ran similar thoughts through his head, and when he reached the end of the garganta, he made a decision.

"Let's find our friends," he said as he broke the entrance with bala once more and jumped out.

Tesla, one of the few survivors from Aizen's army, sighed as he moved about in his chamber. As the head of the Royal Guard in White Plateau, he was given his own private chamber, though he turned this chamber into armory. He stopped at the window of the said chamber and sighed.

Hueco Mundo wasn't what it was before, he thought as he twisted his body here and there.

And what he thought was true. When Aizen was in power, there was a large, strict order and security in the world of the hollows. But now, there were fragmented kingdoms that ruled as they saw fit and often made wars on each other. And if the wars on the top of this world looked bad, then the situation in the Forest of Menos was worse. Shinigamis and human forces wanting to come into the Hueco Mundo always landed in it. And then most of them died from being assaulted by the hollows there. It was a literal bloodbath.

He sighed. Order was missing from this world.

Nel's kingdom, Kingdom of White Plateau, was the strongest of the kingdoms out there. And they kept order as Nel saw fit, although they were very unsuccessful at that.

"Tesla!" Nel's voice came.

"I'm going, Nel-sama!" he replied. He gave the moon one last glance before ran out of his room.

Now, as Tesla went towards where he heard Nel, he passed by series of windows that gave a very good view of Nel's city, the White Plateau, which was also the only city in the region of White Plateau.

Most of the buildings were tall - at least several floors - and were cylinder. All of them had a window or two that gave a view of the nearest street. On top of some of them, arrancars made little shops and gardens. Greens filled the space where white and black used to dominate.

Then he came to the throne room where the real throne was in...

Meanwhile, Ichigo came out of the garganta and sighed. Although it was very stupid of him, he had traveled to Soul Society and had come out of the 4th West Rukongai. He looked around and saw that he was on a sunflower field surrounded by forest on one side and other farming land on the other. It was a pleasant scene. From here, he saw people working on their farms and kids playing around at the edge of the farmlands.

He lowered his reiatsu down to the point where it was almost nonexistent-only highly skilled captains and lieutenants would find him.

He didn't know why he was here but it felt like he needed to be.

Instinct and institution.

Those two were guiding him now. And he didn't have any objections.

He looked around for a disguise and found a warehouse near the sunflower field. He rushed into it and replaced his ragged clothes with one of the farmer's clothes there. Then he left the Rukongai with sonido towards Seireitei.

He really wanted to see his old friends...

Byakuya, still the head of the sixth division, frowned when his daughter gave him the report.

"He was a tall, orange haired arrancar. He called himself Ichigo," she said, finishing the report with a little description about him.

And her father slightly flinched. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Ichigo, did he say?" he asked her.

"Yes. He called himself Ichigo," she replied.

"So he's a arrancar now, huh," he thought outloud.

"Was he not before?" she asked.

Byakuya looked at his daughter with the same emotionless expression that she gave him. "He is your uncle," he said.

Jidanbo yawned.

After the ryoka invasion, there wasn't much that was interesting as ever. Hollows were piece of a cake for him and arrancars as well.

But today was a very different day because someone he thought dead was standing in front of him, alive.

"Ichigo?" he said.

"Yo..." the said man replied. "Mind opening the door?" he asked him.

Jidanbo wanted to. But the thing was that the reiatsu he felt from Ichigo was that of a hollow, an arrancar specifically. "I-Ichigo, are you a-"

"Yes. Now open the door. I'm getting tired of waiting."

Certainly being a hollow reduced his already short temper.

"You're an arrancar, Ichigo, I can't-"

Ichigo lowered his horns and charged a cero. Jidanbo, shocked by the aggressive actions, backed away, putting his axe in front of him. "I ain't asking," Ichigo said. "Open it."

"There's no need to."

Ichigo decharged his cero and looked at the owner of the voice. Surprisingly, he came through a small hole in the wall that closed right after he stepped some distance away.

He wore a captain's haori and carried a wakazashi.

"Ichimaru Gin. I'm surprised to see you come out of there," Ichigo said.

"As am I. Last time I saw you, you were underneath my foot," he grinned.

Ichigo frowned. "Open the door," he said to Jidanbo as he charged his cero again. "I'm not asking."

- 


	6. Chapter 6

Open the door," Ichigo repeated, his cero reaching a limit.

Gin looked at Jidanbo. "I guess we gotta open the door," he smiled at him and the giant opened the gate.

A loud rumble shook the land as the giant lifted the slab of stone. Ichigo discharged his cero and entered Seireitei. "Thanks," he said and scared Jidanbo let go of the stone, making a large but short earthquake around.

Gin was still smirking.

"How can you be smirking?" Jidanbo asked, a bit angered.

"It's because that was a bala that Ichigo was charging. Even if he fired, it wouldn't have killed you," he said. Jidanbo's eyes widened. "But I'm surprised that he could charge his bala between his horns, not in his hands."

"Why is that?"

"From my time in Hueco Mundo as Aizen's," here he puts his two hands up and made a quotation marks, "Subordinate, I learned that arrancars usually make bala with their hands. This is because hands have more control over other parts of the body where you can 'fire' charged energy. One of the Espadas for example, uses his tongue to fire. But in the end, hands are much better like most of the higher Espadas use their hands or weapons in their hands."

"Huh..." Jidanbo said, though he wasn't listening much.

"Well, I better go in before the Sotaicho barks about letting a arrancar into the Seireitei," he said and disappeared.

Meanwhile in White Plateau...

Grimmjow groaned as he fought against the last of the attackers who were sieging the city.

Already in his resurrecion form, he fired several of his dark green crystalline darts at the catapult tower. The tower took direct hit and flipped over and into the air. The struture spun many times before coming down and crushing some of the shinigamis below.

Lately, the shinigamis and the humans have doubled their effort on attempting to subjugate the arrancars and the hollows. Though attempts can sometimes be futile, their operation nevertheless left behind large amount of corpse on either sides.

They weren't just attacking the White Plateau.

The nearest city-state, Veroi, suffered a siege as well. Less armed than the White Plateau, they received more structural and personnel damage.

Even with their catapult down, the humans and the shinigamis were forcing their way into the city. Seeing that the city's gate had been breached, Grimmjow jumped down and made a roar. The shockwave knocked out half of the shinigamis and the humans, allowing Grimmjow's men to take them out with ceros or balas.

"Fucking bastards!" he shouted as he grabbed a gun from one of the dead humans. Instead of shooting with it, he threw the gun at high speed, and the said weapon flew like shurikan through many of the invading forces.

Then the they began to retreat.

The humans dragged their comrades away while protected by shinigamis and others. Grimmjow, unwilling to let them go off easily, fired more of his dart at a large concentration of humans. A explosion erupted out of there and the humans were thrown up and sideways. One of them happened to fly at him.

Instead of kicking the human to his or her death, he grabbed it, forced the human on the ground and lifted his hand for personal finish.

That's when he noticed that this human was a girl.

A girl in the battlefield.

She had black hair with some orange here and there. Wide eyes, round yet sharp nose, high cheek bones, moderate lips, round face, and dark eyebrows. She reminded him someone that he wanted to have a rematch with.

"Fucking arrancar," she hissed as she struggled to reach for a gun.

"Ah..?" Gimmjow said as his subordinates moved in to push the invading force out of the city. He lifted his hand a bit higher and brought it down.

The girl squeezed her eyes shut.

BAM!

The girl slowly opened her eyes and saw that he had only made a cut on her cheek.

"You," he said, catching her attention. "Are my spoil of war," he grimaced and she trembled. He pushed them both on their feet. He then pushed her away and pointed at her.

"Vacie Magia #19," he said as a small black light appeared on the tip of his finger. "Sello de Serpiente."

The black light shot out like like detailess snake and wrapped itself around her waist and wrists.

"What the-" she muttered. As far as she knew, the arrancars were incapable of performing kidos.

"It ain't a kido, kid. It's something our forces created to counter your kidos," he said as he grabbed her by the collar of her vest. And then against her will, he dragged her away.

Nel stood in front of the graves of those who had died in the latest siege. There was a total of ten deaths, compared with forty invaders.

She gave a salute in front of the grim, crying, and sad crowd before retiring.

Followed by Grimmjow, she was escorted back into her palace, which was only half a mile away from the cemetery.

"Grimmjow," she said.

"Hmm?"

"Did you catch a human?" she asked.

"...Yeah," he said. "My spoil of war."

"Oh, spoil of war now, is it? You always killed them, don't you?"

"In battlefield, of course. Isn't that what my fucking job?" he asked, a bit incredulous of her behavior. "But I wonder where that Kurosaki is."

"I do too."

Ichigo was easily the strongest arrancar in all of Hueco Mundo. Everyone saw that when he took down Nel's royal guard, who was the fourth strongest in her kingdom. She stopped walking and turned to Grimmjow. "Can you go help the reconstruction, or are you needed elsewhere... with your 'spoil of war'?" she asked.

He grinned.

Back to Soul Society...

Ichigo looked at the group of shinigamis in front of him. Some of them he recognized, others he did not.

But they all had one thing in common.

Their swords.

They were all drawn.

What a welcome party, huh?

Gin appeared next to him and slung his arms over Ichigo, who stiffened.

"Well, what do you guys think?" Gin asked them.

"What do we think? You fucking let a hollow in!" Renji -still a lieutenant- growled at Gin.

"Now, you don't talk to the Minister of Foreign Relationships like that," Byakuya said to Renji. He pushed his zanpakuto back into his scabbard and turned to Gin. "Who is this?"

"Ichigo."

Everyone turned their eyes to the group of Quincies who was amongst them.

Central 46 and Soul Society found out that Quincies were valuable allies and that it was wrong for them to try to exterminate them. So they apologized and did all that, and proposed to the surviving Quincy population to come and live in Seireitei. And most of them, about 500 of them, agreed, for they believed that something good can be achieved from being ally with the shinigamis. Thanks to researchers like Urahara and Mayuri, they were also able to change their soul destroying weapons into soul cleansing weapons like zanpakutos.

But the man who said the same of the Winter War's hero was non other than Ishida Uryu.

Ichigo made a sad smile. "Sorry you have to see this form of me again," he said.

And it was everyone else's turn to gawk, shout, flee, cry and do all.

- 


	7. Chapter 7

Ichigo looked at the shinigamis in front of him. And one of them was San.

"Are you saying that ... that's my uncle?" San asked her father, who stood next to her.

The one to answer was the Quincy. "Yes, I do believe that is your uncle..." he said quietly.

She looked at Uryu. The said Quincy was a soul like her. But unlike her, he died three decades ago, and ended up as a soul just when Central 46 decided that Soul Society desperately needed their help.

"That's ...my mother's older brother?" she asked again, half denying the fact and half shocked.

"Yes," he replied nonchantly.

"Just visitng," Ichigo spoke up, catching all their attention. "I thought I needed to catch up on the recent history. I was gone for a century," he added.

Byakuya ordered that they put their swords down, and most obeyed without complaining.

"Where's Rukia?"

The said woman sat in her seat in her captain's office. After the Winter War, she had received the lieutenant's position for the 13th Division. She rejected at first but accepted afer watching Ichigo die; she felt the need to forget about the horrible event that played out before her eyes.

BAM!

She glared at whoever had slammed their way into Ukitake's office, but her eyes softened when she saw that it was San. "What are you doing here?" she asked.

San was gasping for breath but all her attempts came out as shallow breaths. "Otou-sama ... wants you, Rukia-dono," she gasped.

"What happened to you this time," Rukia muttered as she followed San.

"A-An arrancar in Seireitei..."

Rukia's eyes widened. Why hadn't she felt the reiatsu?

Ukitake smiled. "So you weren't dead," he said to the orange haired boy.

"Of course. Fate seems to hate me, it never lets me die," he said.

"Shouldn't you be saying that fate loves you for not letting you die?"

"... I don't know. Just spouting out whatever comes out of my mouth."

Then a stranger came to them, specifically to Gin. He was dressed in 19th century Western European military uniform with a matching baret.

"Ah, Colonel Nurako!" Gin said enthusiastically. Ichigo turned to look at the said man.

Major Nurako, unlike how his name suggested, was a Cacausian with black hair and green eyes. "Who is he?" Ichigo asked.

"Colonel Nurako Benjamin, commander of the Hueco Mundo Assault Forces (HAF). He's a American who was chosen by the UN to help us keep the hollow population in control," he said.

Something inside Ichigo twitched.

"Keep the population under control...?"  
>he repeated.<p>

"Yes. Over the last century, more and more people became perceptive to spiritual entities and worlds. It was opposite of what it was back then when you were alive. Now, it's extremely rare to see spiritually unaware people."

"I see," he said.

"... Last attack was more unsuccessful than before..."

"What attack?" Ichigo asked outloud.

Gin and the Colonel turned to see him. "Why is a arrancar in Seireitei?" he asked.

"Colonel Nurako Benjamin, meet Kurosaki Ichigo, the hero of the Winter War. Ichigo meet Benjamin," Gin said.

"Hello," Colonel said. "The hero of the Winter War?"

"Yes. I defeated Aizen," he said.

"So you're the one responsible for setting all those hollows loose," he growled under his breath.

Ichigo didn't reply but looked as if he didn't care.

"Now, now, let's not get into a verbal warfare, shall we?" Gin said friendly, breaking the two apart.

Ichigo agreed silently but the colonel didn't. "Now that I see it, but why is an arrancar in the city?" he asked.

The said arrancar took a note of the colonel in front of him: aggressive bastard.

"He's a friend of ours. Didn't I say that he is the hero of the Winter War?" the captain of the 3rd Division said.

It was Ichigo's turn to ask question. "I thought you left Gotei 13 for good, Gin. What made you come back?" he asked, ignoring Benjamin, who in turn glared at him.

"Well, I left for a decade, visited your grave though when everyone was gone after the funeral, but I heard that Matsumoto got really sick. I thought I could hold it out, hoping she'd heal. Only messages I heard from the Gotei 13 was about her, ya see, there were a lot of people admiring her, guys and gals outside the city. Eventually I gave up under the jealousy and came back," he said. "And now, I'm a daddy!"

"Good for you... I think," Ichigo said, but muttered the last two words under his breath.

"Ichigo!"

Ichigo's eyes widened a nanometer when he heard the cry of someone he knew very well.

He turned around and saw Rukia in her shinigami robes. But whoa, she was completely different from before. Her bosoms were much bigger than before as well her curves. So were her hair. They were longer and tied into a single ponytail, much like how Karin had hers tied during her junior high years.

But the height... not much difference.

"Yo midget," he greeted her as she ran to him with tightened fists. He was happy to see her again but he decided against showing it.

"Ichigo!" she roared angrily before throwing one of her uppercuts at him.

Clean hit.

Ichigo flew several feet into the air before falling backward and landing on his back. He laid there on the ground, shocked by the strength that her small produced.

Kyoraku, who was with Ukitake, whistled.

Renji merely cringed. He forgot to mention Ichigo that Rukia had been practicing her hand-to-hand combative styles.

Ichigo got up without a scratch, only to be slammed back onto the ground by Rukia.

"Why are you crying?" he asked her with a soft smile.

And she really was crying. Her eyes were full of tears and they streamed out of her eyes like rivers. Her shoulders were curved inward and were trembling along with the rest of her body.

"Baka..." she sobbed quietly, not wanting to sob in front of three captains and the UN representative. Ichigo took note of this as well. He slowly got up, scooped her up, and sonido'ed, leaving a group of higher-ups behind.

Ichigo got them on top of the Sogyoku Hill, otherwise known as the Execution Hill, where he rescued her.

When they were alone, she finally let it out on him.

"BAKA, BAKA, BAKA, BAKA!" she cried and sobbed at the same time.

Ichigo had a sad expression on his face. He didn't think until now how much he had hurt her by dying in front of her in such a horrible way.

He merely embraced her as she let out all her frustration, sadness, and anger.

"I'm here now," he said. "I'm here."

She sobbed uncontrollably, and his mind be damned, even while crying, she looked beautiful. "Hey," he said.

She looked up, still sniffing and sobbing.

"Can I finish what I wanted to say to you before I died?" he asked her and she nodded.

"I love you."

- 


	8. Chapter 8

Without Ichigo next to her, Nel felt empty and lonely. It was the first time she felt this since she got over his death a century ago. It was technically 91 years ago but still the implication remained.

She sat on her throne in the throne room going over the documents that she had to fill out. Some of them were tedious, but others very important.

"Nel-sama."

She looked up from her desk and saw that Tesla had came to her just like she asked. "Ah, Tesla, you're here," she said before going back to work.

"Is there something you need?" he asked her.

She reached for a letter and waved it in the air, gesturing for him to come and read it.

He took light steps towards her as not to bother her with her work and took the mail into his hand. He saw that it was already open and had the seal of the Gotei 13 and the Hueco Mundo Assault Forces. He cringed when he saw the seal of the HAF. Something was tickling with his memory. Then he remembered.

On his way to Nel's throne room, Tesla was sure that he saw a tattered HAF uniform on the ground inside Grimmjow's room. Though the door was only slightly open from careless mistake, he heard all the screams and pleas of the poor girl most likely getting raped by the teal general.

Tesla pulled the letter out of the envelope and read it silently to himself. By the time he finished it, he was pretty surprised.

"And you're reply to this?"

"They have given us the choice to make the conditions in which they will come to us and meet us. I want you to deliver that message to them."

A shiver ran up Tesla's spine. Deliver a message to the shinigamis? Surely she meant for him to -

"Kurosaki Ichigo will be there as your escort. There isn't anything to worry about," she said, looking up from her work and giving him a insuring smile.

He nodded nervously. "Yes, ma'am." He knew the current power level of Kurosaki Ichigo, and hell, he was probably the strongest being in all of Hueco Mundo!

Nel folded the piece of paper in front of her, put it in a new envelope with the mark of the White Plateau - a white hollow mask with two zanpakutos on its side - and gave the said envelope to Tesla.

"And I heard that you're a father now," she said with a grin which made Tesla shiver again. "Sorry for not realizing the news earlier."

"It's nothing, Nel-sama."

"Boy?"

It's a girl, ma'am."

"Oh, that's cute! I'd love to see her one day when I'm off ... from all ... this," she said enthusiastically in the beginning but died down at the end. Then, she slammed her head on the desk. Fortunately, the desk was strong enough and there was enough paper to take the massive pressure that she applied to them so that both of them weren't split or ripped.

But it made a huge sound.

"Too much paperwork..." she groaned as Tesla gave her a bow, which she acknowledged, and left her alone in her throne room.

Meanwhile, Ichigo and Rukia stood next to each other and far away from the group of shinigamis preparing to receive the messenger from White Plateau.

"Hey, Rukia," Ichigo said.

"Hmm?" she said, looking up at him.

"Has anything happened between my death and now?" he asked her.

Rukia's face kind of darkened. "Well, Renji and I ... got married."

"That's good!"

Rukia whirled her head around, confused by what he said to her. "Good?"

"You guys married because you guys loved each other right...? Or is it because you two did something very naughty?" he teased with her.

She blushed. He hadn't forgotten about the relationship between the two shinigamis. It was true that Rukia loved Ichigo and Renji around the same time. Ichigo, being a brighter than the other, realized this and had stepped out of the way for the other two. Of course, Rukia had some things to say about that. But eventually she and Renji became really close.

"Well... I ... ah," she stuttered, unable to fin the word to explain their current situation.

"Had sex and had lots of babies?" he grinned, clearly mocking them.

She smacked him at the back of the head. "That hurts, midget!" he cried angrily.

"That's what you get for mocking us!"

"Well, did you?"

"Yes, we have five children!"

Silence.

Then he began laughing.

"Five? That's A~~~~~~~ LOT!" he laughed.

At first, she pouted but ended up laughing with him as well. This was kind of the good old days she had missed dearly after Ichigo's death. Perhaps they were return now, permanently.

Ichigo would've laughed with her more had a garganta not opened in the middle of the sky only a kilometer or so away from them.

Then from there, Tesla stepped out.

The air of the human cities were polluting as always.

Their machines were spilling waste even as others tried to keep this pollution down to a minimum so that it won't affect their to a degree that will start another ice age.

"Well, if it isn't Tesla."

The said arrancar turned around and saw that it was Ichigo who had called him.

"Hello, Kurosaki-sama," he said.

"No honorifics please. Just Ichigo," the orange haired man said. "I hate it when someone calls me with honorifics. But I don't care about you using dono."

"Ah.. okay..."

"Well, are you the messenger?" he asked.

"Yes, I am."

"The message?"

Tesla shuffled in his vest's pocket and pulled out a nice, smooth envelope. He handed it to Ichigo who handed it to Rukia. The said female shinigami took it and shunpo'ed to a distance away where a Goter 13 representative and a UN representative was waiting.

Watching the arrancars, shinigamis, and the humans, however, was another being.

He wore the skin of a ordinary human but his red iris narrowed and widened as camera's lenses would, looking up at the sky where all the events were happening. His black trench coat fluttered as strong winds knocked them up and down as he watched the spirits above on the edge of a smaller of the skyscraper. If he jumps down, then he would have 300 meter to go before hitting the ground, but it was more likely to be hit by the car before that happens.

"Kurosaki Ichigo... Kuchiki Rukia... Ukitake Juoshirou... " it muttered in monotone as if cataloging the said men and woman into a file cabinet.

"Oi, you, what are you doing there? Don't you know that dangerous?" a police man shouted at him as he came closer via walking.

The man looked down at the police officer. "Who are you?" he asked.

"I'm a poli-"

"Human."

"What?"

"Nothing much, officer," the man said as he reached into his trench coat. The police officer, feeling that this man was hiding something, reached for his gun discreetly. "What are you doing?" the police officer asked him.

The man chuckled before jumping off the edge of the building.

The police officer's eyes widened, and he ran to the edge to see the man falling.

But the thing was, he wasn't there; the man who had fell off the edge was not falling. In fact, he was nowhere to be seen.

"Good day."

BAM!

The police officer slumped over on the edge, and the man who had fallen off the edge now stood behind him with a gun pointing to the space where the police officer's head had occupied just a minute ago.

"Let's start this warfare now, shall we?" he said as he turned around to a group of people who were all grinning as well.

- 


	9. Chapter 9

When the gunshot rang out in the city below, the shinigamis and the arrancars above looked down and saw a police man fall over and die from a gunshot.

Surprisingly, Ichigo looked indifferent.

Rukia didn't. "What the fuck are they doing?" she growled.

'Oh, dirty mouth,' Ichigo took note of her change.

"We'll go take care of it," one of the escorts who had followed Rukia and Ichigo to the location said to them. He turned around, gestured to two other shinigamis, and the three of them shunpo'ed down to the level of the skyscrapers.

"What are you doing?" the shinigami who had the other two asked the human who held the gun while he and the shinigamis kept their hand hovering over their zanpakuto.

The man with the gun frowned. "Ah, forgot that the shinigamis had a meeting here today," he muttered to himself so that no one else could hear. Then he made a smile. "I'm just getting rid of scums, that's all!" he said enthusiastically, as if homicide was nothing too big of a problem.

"... You are under arrest. You have the right to remain-"

"Blah, blah, blah," the man said as he aimed at the shinigami. "'Bulbup,'" he said outloud.

The gun slowly changed its shape. Its gun hole closed and it grew straight like a sword.

And it was a sword, specifically a rapier.

"It's a Fullbringer!" the shinigami roared as he and the other drew their zanpakuto out. "Seize-"

The lead shinigami never got to finish his release command because one of this man's 'friends' had used a shunpo-like technique to get around his back. He had pulled out a small dagger and cut his throat behind - exactly at the same time as two others killed the rest of the shinigami on the skyscraper with the exact same move.

Blood built up in their necks and streamed out. All three of them fell and soon died from blood loss.

"Ke ke ke ke..." the man with the rapier snickered. He looked up and aimed his rapier as well. "Tamguja," he muttered.

Then, he pulled his rapier back and threw it like a lance.

Rukia, Ichigo, Tesla, and the rest of those present saw the whole scene happen under 10 seconds. It was lightning fast. Then they saw that their leader was a fullbringer, but Ichigo didn't know who they were.

Rukia was the first to lunge out with her zanpakuto released. Her eyes were narrowed with calm anger.

But only Ichigo saw the rapier being hurled and flying through the air.

"Hey, Rukia watch out!" he shouted after his friend, who was too angered to hear him. 'Why is she angered to this extent?'

The rapier flew through the air ... and made a 90 degrees turn right in front of Rukia's face?

The butt end of the rapier hit her on the forehead and forced her to flip backward. Then the rapier went towards other shinigamis charging towards them. It did the same with them all as well.

'They can't see it.'

'He could see it.'

"Kenji," a deep brass voice called him fro behind. The said man turned around to see a man dressed in heavy grey overcloak. It covered his forehead, parts of his piercing grey eyes, none of his round jaw, most of his body, and his limbs. He looked like a statue.

"What is it, Mr. Bihumada?" Kenji asked.

"The orange haired arrancar is much stronger than any of those present here. You must be careful not to anger him," he said.

"Of course... Perhaps you want to fight the shinigamis, my dear Brahman?" he asked him.

"... I would," he said as the overcloak open, slipped off of him, and revealed the heavy armor that was under the overcloak. By the looks of it, the armor was at least several hundred pounds, if one was to guess by looking. In fact, it was 500 pounds, enough to crush a normal human being just by falling on top of them.

Bihumada bent his knees and with a great push, jumped from the skyscraper to the nearest shinigami: Rukia.

"Rukia!" Ichigo shouted as he sonido'ed just in time to grab her and and sonido once more before Bihumada had a chance to hit her with his armor.

The said enemy screeched to an instant halt at the stop where he had expected to kill a shinigamis. But he saw that the arrancar had saved him.

"Why do you interfere with our affairs, arrancar? Are you not their enemy?"

"Why would I be their enemy when I was their friend a century ago?" Ichigo asked him as he put Rukia down on her own feet and turned to Bihumada.

The said man was a tall man like Ichigo, except he was much more muscular.

He touched his armor on the chest with his right arm and the armor gave off a white light. Slowly, just like Kenji's gun had done, it began to change shape.

A giant, broad, black longsword was twisted into shape with the change. Usually longswords are around the height of a junior high school student, which is somewhere from 4 foot to 5 and half. But this longsword held by the Indian Brahman was 8 foot long just in length alone, excluding the handle.

"Then take your woman and go, I have no wish to fight an arrancar," he said.

Rukia blushed. "I'm not his woman!"

"Is that so...?" Bihumada frowned as he used the same shunpo-like technique his friends had used. He was behind Ichigo and Rukia with his sword raised high into the air.

They turned around just in time for Ichigo to block it.

One would expect that if you have a 8 foot long sword, it will be hard to carry. For average humans, it is impossible to even carry it for long.

The Brahman, however, brought it down with equal shiftness of a dagger.

But it wasn't enough to penetrate Ichigo's hierro.

Ichigo grinned. Something inside him was boiling up, something happy and bloody.

Ichigo's sclera slowly turned black from white and he let out a echoing chuckle that sounded much like a hollows. "Let's fight, human," he said.

- 


	10. Chapter 10

Bihumada was the first to strike.

He drew his sword back and jumped away from the two of them. Then he held it with both of his hands and put it above his head.

"Pahale Aga," he said.

The black longsword lit up in blue flames. He stepped forward much like how a fencer does, and he slung the sword down.

Ichigo pulled out his zanpakuto and deflected with equivalent force to that of Bihumada's strike.

The longsword was deflected left of Bihumada, but some of the flames were left on Ichigo's zanpakuto, which was pretty small compared to Ichigo's previous clever-shaped Zangetsu.

Ichigo stared at the flames. Then his eyes widened as he realized what it was. "Shit!"

"Burn in the flames of first fire that gave birth to the universe," Bihumada said as he took out a cross from underneath his clothes, which were black trenchcoat like Kenji's. "Naraka aga."

Instantly, Ichigo's right arm and his zanpakuto instantly went up in blue fire. The flame did not spread but the intense light produced by the fire blinded many.

And Ichigo writhed in pain through hisses.

"Ichigo!" Rukia shouted.

Ichigo growled angrily as he grabbed his shoulder. And with cold emotions equal to Byakuya's, he ripped his arm off.

Rukia screamed briefly before covering her mouth as he threw his arm away.

Then his arm regenerated.

Rukia's eyes widened as she saw the arm same as the one that had been there before. She gulped. It was then she truly saw Ichigo for what he was: an arrancar.

The horned mask began to appear once more on his head. "What the hell was that?" he asked, slightly grinning, slightly frowning. He was going ... slightly crazy. "You're actually really strong. I guess ... I don't need to hold back."

'What's happening to him?' Rukia thought.

Bloodlust was surfacing up within Ichigo.

Why was he expressing this much ... violence?

Ichigo himself didn't know. All he wanted to do was kill the bastard who threatened to kill his friends and himself. "Fight? You got one!" he said as the mask-helmet covered the entirety of his head and he aimed a bala at Bihumada.

The said Brahman, who was actually a brahman by heritage not by his choice of religion, used his sword to slam the bala away.

And it was effective.

Only this time, his sword was far away when Ichigo appeared before him with his zanpakuto in his hands, which he probably got it with a sonido, and struck Bihumada.

The zanpakuto sliced through all of the bones and muscles starting at the right shoulder blade and came out clean at the lower left chest; he was literally cut in half.

He died instantly from the shock.

Kenji frowned as he saw his friend die as it happened while his rapier was toying with the rest of the shinigamis, rounding them into a corner.

But what he forgot to remember was that there was Tesla, who had just sonido'ed right up to him and brought his zanpakuto down.

Kenji took the hit.

And he disappeared like fog.

"Where are you aiming?" he hissed as he appeared behind him with dual pistols.

Then he unleashed multiple shots.

Normally, hierro of Tesla's level would withstand most projectile from pistol bullets to tank shells.

But the bullets from Kenji's guns pierced right through his body.

"GAH!" Tesla yelled as pain surged throughout his body. He quickly sonido'ed away and reappeared some distance away from the skyscraper where Kenji and the rest of his kind were. 'What the fuck was that...?' he thought as he coughed up some blood.

"My bullets are made so that they eat reishi and reiatsu like a parasite," Kenji said with a smile as he looked at his gun. "But I only got you because it was a surprise attack."

Then he looked at Tesla and aimed his gun, two of them. But did not fire.

Something underneath his jacket moved.

The coat opened on its own and pistols were flying out. Then as if they were soldiers, they all lined up next to the dual pistols he held, ten on each side, all aiming at Tesla.

"But can you dodge twenty bullets?"

Tesla's eyes widened.

"Didn't think so."

Rukia looked at Ichigo with wide, scared eyes. This is the arrancar form that Uryu had warned her about.

This was the terror that had taken down Aizen and many of the Espadas.

This was the horror. A monster.

Her friend ... was a monster.

But all those thought ... vanished when she felt a sharp pain in her chest.

She froze and looked down.

A sword...

Ichigo turned around when he heard the sickly sound of the muscles ripping and his eyes narrowed as he saw the blade through Rukia's chest. Specifically, her heart.

She only muttered a bit before the sword pulled out and she fell into Ichigo's arms.

Ichigo caught her gently and turned his eyes to the hovering rapier.

He charged a cero and fired, incinerating the rapier to dust.

Then he turned to Kenji, the wielder of the rapier, just as he fired all his guns at the same time.

And Ichigo saw Tesla die too.

- 


	11. Chapter 11

It was ... dark.

Ichigo couldn't see anything around him. It was as if someone had popped his eyeballs out of his socket. Perhaps that was the case, but he doubted it; he felt no pain in his eyeballs.

Slowly, he forced his eyes to open and became horrified at what he saw.

Before him stood a once magnificent city, bristling with people and towered with skyscrapers, now reduced to rubbles. Smokes filled the sky and survivors of this mystery attack screamed.

Ichigo didn't see any of the 'fullbringers' as they called themselves. They had disappeared. But he was still here.

And just then, a Senkaimon opened.

Then he remembered that he had been holding Rukia. He looked down at his arms... and he found her there, dead and cold. But she was smiling. Why was she smiling?

"W-What did you do, Ichigo?"

Ichigo turned around and saw Renji and Uryu with many other Quincies and shinigamis.

"I didn't do anything! I just woke up and saw all this!"

"Just woke up?" Renji growled. "You baka, we feel your reiatsu all over the place!" Abruptly, he stopped, for he saw his wife in Ichigo's arms. "R-Rukia!"

Ichigo's eyes narrowed into sadness.

"You bastard..."

Ichigo looked up at Uryu.

"Huh?"

"I knnow you're an arrancar and might have more bloodlust than normal humans but you went too far, Kurosaki," Uryu hissed.

"Wait-"

Uryu pulled his bow up and fired multiple arrows at Ichigo.

"Wait, damn it!"

"There's nothing to be said anymore! Let go of my wife!" Renji shouted. "Bankai!"

Several people sat on top of a mountain far away from Karakura City, about a mile or so away. And from here Kenji felt the reiatsu of three beings clash, and he chuckled at the thought of friends fighting each other. "That was a nice one, eh, Shiza-chan!" he said to another Fullbringer wearing the same black trench coat that Kenji and Bihumada wore.

"I believe it is."

Shiza was a petite and lean woman with wavy red hair that would've made men drool just with a glimpse of it. Her face was no exception. Her beauty was only matched by Rangiku. Sadly for the men who want her, her curves were just average.

"Shiza-chan, cheer up! We're closer to our goal!" he said with a smile. "We got Kurosaki scapegoated, no?"

She merely nodded. "I understand." Then she turned around and slowly walked away. "Do not forget what Bihumada said."

Kenji's face darkened. "I got it."

Ichigo, while fighting his two friends, realized that the old release commands he knew for Zangetsu didn't work. To be more exact on that, the zanpakuto in his hand didn't feel like zanpakuto. And he was right. Truth be told, when he died a century ago, Zangetsu was forced to become part of Ichigo's soul again and was broken down into many pieces to fill up the hole that he had created by being ... well, him. Now a new zanpakuto had been formed from different fragments of Ichigo's soul.

Problem be specified, Ichigo did not know his zanpakuto's release command.

Ichigo growled as Uryu's arrow hit his left shoulder. He looked at it and saw that a bomb was attached at the end of the arrow. Before Ichigo could curse himself for not seeing that, the bomb exploded.

Renji took this chance to use shunpo, grab Rukia, and shunpo away.

Ichigo remained in the cloud of gas and dust that the bomb had created by exploding on his hierro.

"I can't believe this."

Uryu and Renji narrowed their eyes. Anger had shrouded both of their eyes; they no longer cared if Ichigo was their friend, he was a hollow, nothing more, nothing less.

But no, Ichigo was too strong to die by the likes of them.

The dust cloud blew away by the winds and Ichigo stood there with blood on his forehead.

"Why?"

"What do you expect, Kurosaki," Uryu said, he sounded hurt. "You're becoming a danger to everyone."

"I didn't hurt Rukia ... or do this," he said as he swayed a little to his right. He coughed up some blood. Over the last century, his two friends had really progressed with their powers. "But I won't be going easy because you were my friends," he said as he unintentionally unleashed a wave of reiatsu that began to distort the air just by being there.

They saw it and soon realized the power difference between them.

'Clean your heart out,' a voice within him said. 'Unleash it. Let it out on ... them.'

"Unleash my hidden anger," he said. The air around him swirled as energy built up. Everyone present knew this to be his release command. And it didn't sound ... benevolent, to say the least.

"Loco Ocultos."

A large around him became engulfed in dark reiatsu that blinded everyone's sight.

But they were easily blown away by the slightest pressure given off by the wind; they were remnants of a reiatsu.

But that in itself did not make sense to Uryu. If there was remnants of reiatsu, then that meant that-

"He ran away!" he growled.

"Guada a Dios."

Everyone turned to where Ichigo had been standing previously. By now, all of the remnant reiatsu had vanished and in place stood ... a different Ichigo.

It was a bit different from how Uryu remembered but it was like the first version of arrancar that Uryu saw of Ichigo. A skull-like helmet with two blade-like horns and a hole in the middle of the chest. Fur around his wrists, ankles, and neck, and a very unfamiliar looking weapon on his hand.

It was a scythe. But it was nearly invisible, only perceptible by the microscopic distorts it caused.

But there was something else.

No one present felt his reiatsu.

"Do you remember, friends?" Ichigo began. "When I was a shinigami, I only had Getsuga Tenshou to fight with. But not anymore."

"What do you mean?" Renji asked, a bit scared and confused by Ichigo's hollow voice and his sudden change in attitude.

"I still retain that technique," he replied as he raised his middle finger. "But what if I could explode it with a snap," he continued as he put his thumb to it. "Of my fingers?"

Snap.

- 


	12. Chapter 12

"Do you remember, friends?" Ichigo began. "When I was a shinigami, I only had Getsuga Tenshou to fight with. But not anymore."

"What do you mean?" Renji asked, a bit scared and confused by Ichigo's hollow voice and his sudden change in attitude.

"I still retain that technique," he replied as he raised his middle finger. "But what if I could explode it with a snap," he continued as he put his thumb to it. "Of my fingers?"

Snap

When Ichigo had said the word 'explode,' Uryu saw through what was going to happen and searched for where the technique was going to hit.

But only to his dismay, he realized that a large area centering Ichigo had the reiatsu density and velocity of that of Getsuga Tenshou, and they were in it. The air was saturated with it.

It was a time bomb.

Snap.

The entire area exploded in magnificent black and red.

Most of the shinigamis and the Quincies that had followed Uryu and Renji fainted from the shock and fell to the ground below, which was about 5 meter fall.

Ichigo, however, had caught two of his friends, who were bloody from the impact of his new technique. Their weapons and releases had been crushed to bits and now only remnants remained.

"Luna Negro... I spread the Getsuga Tenshou out in a sphere centering me. Though harmless without command, my ... new zanpakuto tells me that it is much stronger than Getsuga Tenshou when it goes off."

He looked at the two former friends. He chuckled. "You two are probably fainted by now, I guess. Well," he muttered as he used sonido to reach the ground. He found a flat ground, and laid them down. Then he went off to find the other shinigamis. He brought them over to the same ground and laid them down next to them.

Then he opened a garganta.

He quickly scanned the material world one last time, engraving the images into his brain, before he stepped into the void and disappeared.

In Soul Society, two women sat in the Kuchiki Mansion. They both wore kimono; Karin wore black kimono with orange sash, and Yuzu wore pink kimono with red sash.

"Well, do you think that we'll be able to see Ichi-nii again?" Yuzu asked, her eyes filled with worry and anticipation.

Karin, now a grown woman, merely smiled. "Don't worry. I'm sure he'll be alright this time," she said before sipping her tea. "Ah..."

Ring ring ring.

Karin reached into her sash and pulled out... a iPhone.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, today's modern technology had finally reached Soul Society to the point where most of the people were carrying a phone, though it isn't as advance as the material world's technology level distribution.

She tapped it, and then carried the phone to her left ear. "Yes, dear?" she asked the caller. Then her eyes widened. The cup in her hands dropped. The tea spilt on the tray, thankfully, and hot steam rose into the atmosphere. "Ichi-nii wouldn't have done that..." she said, scaring Yuzu. Her replies were soon followed by 'uh huh's and 'okay's.

"Karin, tell me what's -"

"Mother!"

The two women turned to San, who ran towards Karin. "It's been a long time since you came home, San. You got some guts," Karin made a motherly smile that had a inverse effect on Kuchiki San.

"I -I well, I -" San began to stutter as she began to sweat.

"Come here," Karin said as a vein popped up on her forehead but it sounded extremely calm.

San didn't say a word and obeyed. She took her shoes off and then sat down next to her mother with her shins on the floor and her hands on her knees.

When San was in right of her, her head down, Karin petted her head. "Come visit your mother once in a while."

"O-Okay..." San said, feeling relieved that her mother hadn't hit her.

Kuchiki Karin is famous through modernized Rukongai districts (Ichigo landed in a district where it wasn't modernized) and Seireitei for being a tiger mom.

She brought San up to be a shinigami she was now, forcing her to learn all the stuff she learned in her high schools years and kidos at the same time since she became 9. Karin had also forced Uryu to become her tutor for algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, ethics, English, Japanese, biology, chemistry, physics, and politics (Uryu was a professor in the material world before he moved to Soul Society).

Though enough is said about San and Karin, Karin is much more known to Central 46 as Iron Politician and the first female member, not to mention youngest, of the Central 46.

Enough said after the current affairs of Soul Society.

Then it was Byakuya's turn to enter the house. He still wore the same uniform he wore a hundred years ago, but there were signs of aging on his hair: a very narrow streak of grey hair.

"Welcome home, Otou-sama," San said, turning around and bowing to him.

"Welcome home dear," Karin said as she stood up. She stepped into her shoes -traditional noble shoes made especially for her- and went to hug Byakuya.

She may have smile as she did this but inside, Byakuya knew that she was going through hard, rocking emotions. Maybe he shouldn't have told her about her older brother. He hugged her back. "I'm home."

Yuzu watched the unlikely but cute couple with a smile.

Just then, there was a ring on her phone.

Yuzu picked it up. Her eyes widened. "Oh my god, I'm sorry! I didn't know that much time passed!" she said as she quickly got into her shoes and ran out of the Kuchiki Mansion while waving at the couple. They waved back as the door closed.

"Yuzu sure is busy with her cooking class," Karin said. "Every house wife and husband want to know her recipes."

"She does make splendid ... what was it called again?"

It was only a month ago that Yuzu convinced Byakuya to try some of her food. And because of the innocent puppy face she gave him, Byakuya had no choice but to try some. And he found it good.

"Pasta."

"Ah, yes. Pasta."

- 


	13. Chapter 13

In a large, wide, and rusty underground basement -which was once a bustling parking lot only five decades ago- in the United States of Americas (note the s at the end), in the Material World, a group of people watched two people fight inside a large ring.

All of those present here were fullbringers and psi users.

And the two in the ring were psi users.

One of them was a Caucasian ginger and the other was a Asian blonde (natural).

They threw invisible punches at each other at the same time.

The Caucasian fell down on the floor on his butt, and his head fell backward, hit the floor and he began to suffer concussion. The Asian took a blow to the shin and it broke. Both of them let out groans of pain.

"That's enough."

The two of them turned to their leader. He was a tall and young man with longish black hair that curved outward starting at their middle. His left eye was covered by a large bang. But despite having such a ... anti-social look, his bright brown eyes held such burning passion, passion for what unknown at the moment at the moment. He wore black butler's uniform.

He turned to the Asian. "Sorry but you lose," he said as he forced the man down on the ground and casted a black field over the man's leg.

As he healed the loser, he turned to the winner. "Now, you. Have something to say?"

"S-Sorry," the man said, half-truthful. He did feel a bit bad for breaking someone's leg.

"Good," the man said. Then he removed the field from the Asian and everyone saw that the wound was practically none existent. The man stood up and bowed in gratitude.

"Well, Vandora, what do you think?"

The said leader turned around and saw a man dressed in black trenchcoat. Vandora immediately recognized him.

"Get out of here, Kenji. This is not your territory," Vandora hissed at Kenji who backed away a little with his hands a little, yet he had a smirk on his face. The others in the basement were moving out of the way and forming a circle between the two of them.

"I see no reasno why I shouldn't be -"

"I know you're the one who made that mess in Karakura City. The area destroyed was exactly 25 cubic kilometer, right? The exact match with your power's extent," he said. "Leave this place now. You are no longer part of the Yulai Confederates," he said.

Kenji's smirk grew wider. "Aw... did our leader get soft?"

"Soft? No, you've grown mad, Kenji," he said as he lifted up his finger and pointed at Kenji. Instantly, everyone's face twisted, including Kenji's. Everyone backed away as far as they could against the walls of the underground compartment. But trying to back up against several hundred people was not easy business.

"Yo, Vandora, you're taking it too far..." Kenji said.

"Leave. I will not have your venom spread to my brothers and sisters," he said. "Leave with your mad gang. You are all no longer welcome in Yulai Confederates."

"Even though we are your strongest?"

"Strongest?" Vandora chuckled, causing everyone to become confused. His face then twisted into a slight frown. "You are nothing but ant compared to our Lord's," he said as the cross necklace around Kenji's neck floated up. Then it snapped and landed on Vandora's palm. Five more crosses came out of nowhere and landed into his palm. The rest of Kenji's gang became visible to the eyes of everyone; they were standing ten or twenty meters away from where Kenji and Vandora was.

"Leave," Vandora said as he turned away. "You are no longer my sons and daughters."

Kenji stared after his 'father' before he looked down.

Tear drops stained the dirty floor.

Vandora sat on the edge of a skyscraper.

And behind him stood a young girl dressed in black trenchcoat, pair of black jeans, and clean, white bandage in place of a top tank stood. "Father Vandora..." she said.

"Yes?" he said as he turned around with a sad smile.

"I have a question about us..."

"I was wondering when you were going to ask me," he said with a brighter smile and gestured for her to sit on the ground.

It has been 80 years since the nation-states of Americas came under one flag under the necessities of survival. It was a mutual benedictory union: the Southern and the Central provided workers in new factories that opened up in North America.

And it has been 80 years since the Paranormal Spike Accident.

Paranormal Spike Accident was a phenomenon in which everything started out with a single mad scientist who believed that humans had more power hidden in them than they believe that they do.

Humans did.

He made several models of coma-inducers that would slowly size up and train brain tissues that would make humans telekinetics and such.

The result was 12,000 individuals that had fallen asleep.

Vandora was one of them. He was a forty year old back then.

"... Because of the Paranormal Spike Accident, however," Vandora said as he related to stories to Sarah Flarefoot, the latest addition to the Yulai Confederates, an organization that Vandora established 70 years ago with his fortune, which has increased exponentially over the years. "Our world became much more known to Spiritual Worlds, which was only visible because our souls became more perceptible of those things."

"Then why is there hollows? Aren't there suppose to be devils and angels? Why-"

"Now dear, things happen for a reason," he said with a smile. "And there are devils. I have seen them myself. Not hollows, but real devils from hell," he said. "And angels, from heaven," he said as he looked up into the sky. "They were ugly and beautiful as our holy book describes them..." he said.

"What happened?"

"I don't know much after that," he said.

"Eh? B-But don't you know everything?" she exclaimed with a confused expression.

"Know everything? I wish I could!" he chuckled. "No, girl. I have simply lived longer than what normal humans live before moving on," he said. 'But I don't think I'll ever move on,' he added to himself before continuing. "I simply know how to interpret more stuff than most," he said.

His answers weren't the ones that most of the children wanted to hear. But it was the fact that they asked for, not what they wanted to hear. "Here, let's go inside. It's getting cold," he said. And then he spontaneously palmed his forehead.

"What is it?" she asked him.

"I forgot to prepare the sermon for tomorrow's services!" he groaned.

She giggled.

He groaned painfully before he began to chuckle nervously. "Now- wah...wah...Wah... ACHOO!"

He really had a tendency to become funny -unintentionally though- after he got serious. Though he found it frustrating, those who came to him for truth were eased by his actions.

- 


	14. Chapter 14

Ichigo stepped out of the void just before the crack in space closed with a loud rumble.

He looked shocked, sad, and depressed. Truth be told, he was on the edge right now. Mental stability-wise. He saw his friend die in his arm, he was attacked by his other friends, and he was forced to hurt them to save his own hide.

He chuckled as a tear rolled down. It was a messed up world that he lived in.

Eventually he couldn't hold it in, and he laughed.

He couldn't take it.

And then ... he fell off the edge.

Not so far from where Ichigo exited from garganta, Nel's city went under extensive repairs from their previous assault from the humans. A small section of the wall was torn down by human war machine called a tank. Though this was nothing compared to what Ichigo could do, it was still a damage to be very aware of.

Nel was supervising the reconstruction when Ichigo's wave of reiatsu hit everyone in her city like a wave of sand.

But it wasn't stable. Smaller and weaker arrancars and hollows were collapsing here and there, and those who didn't whimpered and let their jaws clatter.

With a sonido, Rudobon came to Nel and bowed. "Nel-sama, we've detected the presence of a Lost Arrancar!" he reported.

Nel looked at her subordinate and nodded. Rudobon was one of the arrancar made by Aizen, who were much stronger than naturally formed arrancar. He, however, had almost a full mask; the bottom right portion of his jaw mask was cracked apart by Yammy's punch, which he did survive from, but barely. Nel had nursed him back to health and he vowed his loyalty for her.

History aside. Nel turned to him. "Take control of the construction," she said before using sonido to Grimmjow's apartment.

Rudobon bowed before she left. And when she left, he turned around and glared at everyone who had stopped working.

It was understandable.

A Lost Arrancar was a arrancar that had reverted back to its hollow form while retaining his or her previous power. Their new shape would be permanently in their resurrecion. Only few know why arrancars become Lost Arrancars; it's the same reason why a plus turns into a hollow.

Overwhelming emotion had taken over the body.

Usually, if a Lost Arrancar is born, it means the death of those nearby, for it will go on a rampage.

"Get back to work! Nel-sama will surely take care of it!" he shouted and they did.

Grimmjow sat with a towel around his waist and down on his bed with the human girl gasping next to him. She was covered with his bed sheet, and her hands were bound by a cuff.

"Grimmjow-!" Nel shouted as she ran into his room. Then she froze and she saw the two of them. "Can you lay off the sex once in a while, Jeagerjaques? Anyway... we got a Lost Arrancar," she said as she turned around and left.

The said man groaned. "Who is she, my mother?" he groaned.

The human girl chuckled.

He turned his head around and glared. "What are you laughing about?"

Though she was his prisoner, Grimmjow has been treating her better after the first rape. Maybe it was a hollow thing to get nice after being so rough.

He smirked when she didn't answer and gave her a light tab on her head. "Silly girl."

She smirked. "Well, you better go get whatever you need to get," she said. "And can you get these cuffs off? The key's in the vest," she added.

He went over to the vest of hers, pulled out the key, and uncuffed her. He went towards his wardrobe and opened it. He pulled his towel down, revealing his tight butt to his mate. Then he put on his Los Humildes uniform. The uniform looked like the Espada's uniform with one exception, the main color of it was grey, not white. He pulled his zanpakuto out and turned around. He gave her a wink before sonidoing away.

There are several theories about Lost Arrancars.

One of the theories state that when a normal arrancar turns into a Lost Arrancar, the transformation acted like a step in evolution, evolving the soul to a higher plane of existence. That theory was made by none other than Aizen Sosuke, the former traitor of Soul Society, now it's prisoner. He has created several of them by using Hogyoku on arrancars.

Though the results of this experiment remain hidden deep in the depths of the ruined Las Noches, the experimented arrancar made Aizen bleed, a lot.

As all these scrambled to find its place in Nel's mind, one more thing came up.

Ichigo is stronger or equal to Aizen in terms of power. Aizen experimented on a very weak arrancar and got himself almost killed.

How strong is Ichigo now?

As Nel constantly thought about Ichigo, the said man stood in the middle of a hollow colony with his zanpakuto in resurreccion; the scythe was invisible.

And around him laid twenty dead arrancars. There were more in this colony, but they were child and mothers, hiding from Ichigo.

Ichigo could only smell their fear even though they remained absolutely silent.

He smirked as he spun the invisble scythe in circles, much like how his inner hollow spun Zangetsu when he first encountered it, however, no one could see it, only the wind it generated.

He eyed the village silently.

Why was he dong this again?

From afar, Nel and Grimmjow watched him massacre the colony with so much bloodlust that even Zaraki didn't match.

"Woah, is that thing there Kurosaki?" Grimmjow asked Nel, feeling a bit under prepared.

Nel looked at Ichigo's mane and the horns on top of his mask. "Yes," she said. "We better stop him before he kills everyone in there," she added before drawing out her zanpakuto. Grimmjow drew his as well with a smirk.

"I've been waiting for a rematch!" he growled happily.

"Praise, Gamura!"

"Grind, Pantera!"

Nel's form changed into a centaur and Grimmjow's clothes turned into his skin, except this time, it was black.

Grimmjow roared, releasing a sonicboom straight at Ichigo who was heading towards a house, ready to crumble it to pieces.

The sonicboom hit Ichigo like a rock and pushed him against the hillside where the house was built on. This threw up a dust cloud roughly the size of three school buses placed right next to each other.

"That's right, Kurosaki-"

A small part of the dust cloud parted and a hole emerged but nothing seemed to come out. "What the-" Grimmjow said.

As if on Que, the invisible scythe that Ichigo threw after being hit by Grimmjow's sonicboom hit Grimmjow squarely on the chest and threw the feline backwards. The said arrancar landed on his back but he quickly got back up. "What the hell was that?" he growled angrily, frustrated and shocked by being hit by an invisible object.

It was Nel's turn. "Ichigo! I'm sorry Grimmjow is impatient but I don't want to fight you!" she shouted to him, even though she couldn't see him because of all the dust.

"Don't want to fight?" a hollow's voice asked as another hole was made, but nothing hit Nel nor Grimmjow. The dust cloud began to change shape and soon dissipated, revealing Ichigo spinning a slightly visible scythe. The mask on his face was moving freely like a face would, making a smirk. "You got it," he said as he began to charge a cero.

- 


	15. Chapter 15

Nel and Grimmjow got ready to dodge the cero that Ichigo was producing.

"Grimmjow," Nel said.

"What?"

"We need to rip his mask off," she said.

Grimmjow turned pale. "W-What?" he mutter incoherently. "That's suicide right now."

"We need to do so if we want our friend back," Nel said before she got ready to do a cero double.

But instead of firing like a normal cero would, the ball of cero between the horns just ... floated out. Then it began to spin around Ichigo. Then another one formed, another one, and so on until twenty of them were formed.

Then five of them vanished ... no, more like it dissipated into the air.

Ichigo snapped his fingers.

The entire area around them blew up as if a nuclear bomb had landed on the area, though it wasn't quite the same.

It threw up dust and sand into the air, and it took some time for all of them to settle back down.

Ichigo thought that that was enough to take down the two former Espadas.

It wasn't.

Especially Nel, who had absorbed half of the explosion.

With a roar, she unleashed it upon Ichigo who took a direct hit.

Grimmjow groaned. Though he survived the attack, one of his arm was scorched with second degree burn. He tched before he put his uninjured hand over his burned arm. "Vacie Magia #1: regeneraci n de aceleraci n," he said and a white light appeared in his hand. Instantly, the arm began to heal its wound at a rate similar to hollow regeneration.

Without waiting, Nel threw her spear into the dust cloud, hoping that she would get Ichigo somewhere around his abdomen.

SSCCRREEECCCHHH!

Soon the dust cloud cleared once more as Ichigo spun his scythe again. But this time, Nel's spear was in his hand.

"Sooooo close," he chuckled as he tightened his grip on the spear's edge, causing cracks to appear. Then with one firm hit from the invisible scythe, the spear broke apart into pieces.

He remained there for a while, as if he was thinking deeply. "What is it that you want?" he asked them.

"We want our friend back," Nel said.

"Rival," Grimjow interrupted.

"Doesn't matter."

Ichigo chuckled. "But you are standing in front of him!" he chuckled. He grabbed the mask and tore it off, unleashing a wave of powerful reiatsu.

The wave of reiatsu hit the two like a ocean wave, threatening them to suffocate under it.

And then it all disappeared.

But Ichigo stood right there with his zanpakuto visible and his face shown; his mask was no longer but his hair had become mullet and black.

Ichigo looked up. "I'm right here," he smirked and made a psychotic face which reminds one of Kurotsuchi's face when he says 'interesting.'

Both of the gulped. They had come here thinking, independently, that Ichigo was under the control of his hollow. He wasn't as they see now.

"Okay, let's go home now," he said abruptly before slugging his scythe over his shoulder.

"..."

"W-What?" Grimmjow shouted.

"I said, let's go home. I'm hungry," he said.

The other two arrancars did not know what to say. This whole scene did not make sense to them.

"What are you talking about?"

"Tch," Ichigo muttered before speaking up while looking the other way with a frown. "Well, I DID go over the edge and become something else, but I don't know what. I was still in control but I didn't know where to go; my pesquia sucks you know," he said. "So I made my reiatsu big as possible and put up some act," he said. "Hoping that someone will find me."

"And you killed people for that-"

"You mean regular old hollows?

"Yeah. These arrancar were apparently trying to kill these villagers and rape them. So I lent them a hand," Ichigo said. "Not to mention that it was a very good experience for me to test this guy out," he said, moving his scythe slightly.

Now that he drew their attention to it, the scythe looked like one of those death scythes that Grim Reaper might carry around.

"But the thing is, I remember releasing it at the human world-" he stopped abruptly, remembering that Tesla had died. His eyes became dark and soft.

He turned to Nel. "Nel," he called her. "I need to tell you something."

Ichigo tried to be as gentle as he could be before telling Nel that Tesla had died after the two of them had sat down near the village.

Surprisingly, she took it well, though her eyes went soft and somewhat watery.

"He has kids," she said.

"Pardon?"

"He has three kids and a wife," Nel repeated with more detail.

Ichigo felt a crunch where his heart used to lay. Tesla had kids...

"It's going to be hard for them to take, especially because they were being supported solely on his salary."

"Who is she?"

"An adjuchas-class arrancar. She's pretty fair for someone who survived alone in Hueco Mundo," she added. "I met her few times with Tesla..."

As she continued to talk, Ichigo couldn't help but realize that she had lost a close friend. Though he wasn't the best friend, he was kind and strong. And now Nel was left alone once more with only Ichigo in front of her.

And he didn't know what else to do but sit there with her and listen.

- 


	16. Chapter 16

Ichigo followed Grimmjow and Nel back to there city as he explained to them what happened in Karakura Town. After he explained all that, he became silent.

"So Soul Society is after your head now, eh?" Grimmjow said. "They never were the friendliest of the bunch," he added.

"Misunderstanding can the better of a man," Nel said. "Or a woman."

Ichigo remained silent. He was still devastated from all the killing and the chaos he experienced. Nel understood this. She slowed her pace so that it would match Ichigo's and stood next to while Grimmjow ran off like a child, kicking some hollows here and there.

"What's wrong, Ichigo?" she asked, even though she knew what was wrong.

"Well," he began. "I don't fill so good lately."

"...How?"

"My friends think I am a murder and I had to hurt them to live. I feel horrible," he said. "And second..."

"I've been getting extremely hungry lately. I've never been this hungry before."

A sweatdrop fell behind Nel's head.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah."

"What about your friends?" she asked him. "Aren't you-"

"I already said that I am. But what am I to do about it? I can't waltz up to Seireitei and shout, 'Hey, I'm innocent! Some random guy scapegoated me!' It's best to just forget. So my attention turned to myself, specifically, my growling stomach." As if on Que, Ichigo's stomach growled loudly. "He agrees," he said, tapping his upper abdomen.

"We're here!"

Nel and Ichigo looked at Grimmjow, who had stayed a bit far in front of them. All three of them now stood in front of the White Plateau City.

"Your Majesty! Did you have a nice walk?" someone above the wall asked with a shout.

Nel looked up, smiled, and waved.

"Who's that?" Ichigo asked.

"That's Rudobon," she said. "After Aizen fell, he's been a trustworthy subordinate."

Ichigo cringed at the name. He forgot all about Aizen. "Oh I remember him... He swarmed me with his soldiers," he said.

"Will you guys hurry up?" Grimmjow growled, himself already through the gate and heading towards his home.

Once Ichigo and Nel got back into her castle, the palace was in a riot at the sight of a Lost Arrancar.

"Your Majesty! You yourself have forbidden the presence of a Lost Arrancar in this city!"

Ichigo eyed one of the arrancars dressed in yellow and white overcloak. He had a large beard and a fragment of his mask in shape of a tiger's eyesocket over his left eye. He was one of the advisors of the city. He was Bachun.

"I have. But I want to recall that," she said before sitting on the throne.

There were five advisors, elders, around her, Ichigo and Grimmjow with Ichigo in the center of a circle that they created. Ichigo merely groaned.

"I have no objections to it, but your majesty," the friendlier of the elders said. "You must take into the fact that Lost Arrancar often end up in madness," he said.

Nel nodded. "I understand that, Camus," she said. "And if he does, I'll take full responsibility."

Camus, the friendly elder, chuckled with two other elders. Camus Tran was the head of the Tran Clan, a clan of arrancars and hollows related by blood and marriage. On the other hand, Bachun Blackwater was the head of the Morgan Warriors, a clan that was founded on bloodlust and strict dogma. It was no wonder to Ichigo that Bachun was so against this new rule.

"Besides," Nel said. "We will be gaining an ally that is stronger than Aizen Sosuke, the former ruler of Hueco Mundo and Las Noches," she added. This silenced everyone including Bachun.

The said elder tched and stomped his way out of the throne room.

"Welcome to the City of White Plateau, Kurosaki Ichigo," Camus said.

Ichigo smiled at the cleanly shaved elder who was dressed same as Bachun had been, except with a insignia of a red dragon on his shoulders. "I hope you find yourself as home in this city."

Ichigo looked at Nel and they both smiled. They were going to enjoy having him here.

Bachun had stormed out of the palace by the time he stopped. Right when he exited the palace gates, he was greeted by twenty arrancars all dressed in red and purple, the colors of the Morgan Warriors.

"What is wrong, dear Master?" the leader asked.

"Nothng," Bachun replied hastily. "I just don't understand about our majesty and that Lost Arrancar."

"A Lost Arrancar was let into the city? This certainly must be interesting," he said.

Bachun chuckled and his face smoothened. "I thought you would be, even though I certainly dislike this change, Vion."

The said man chuckled. "Maybe I should lead your God-Eaters and assasinate him," he said.

Bachun smirked. "I would certainly love that."

- 


	17. Chapter 17

They are special force within the Morgan Warriors. They are adjuchas-level arrancars trained under the personal care of Bachun. They were the enforcers of the Morgan Warrior's lands, which was northern districts inside the City of White Plateau. Though they are only adjuchas-level, they were strong enough to take down a vasto lordes-evel arrancars by themselves.

Bachun smiled as he and his escorts walked down to their land. The Northern Districts were known for their fancy shops and factories.

Bachun turned to Vion. "Of course I wuld love to kill that Lost Arrancar. He's a filth and a low-born!" he hissed angrily, though not directed at Vion.

"I would certainly do what you ask. After all, who's going to care if one arrancar dies?" he grinned as they arrived at a small manor in the middle of the city. Vion opened the doors for his master and Bachun went inside the white Victorian manor.

After everyone left, Ichigo and Nel were left alone in that throne room. He grinned at her.

"What?" she asked him.

"You really did take control of the place," he said as he came up to the throne and leaned in, causing Nel to blush from the close proximity. "What?" he asked her when she noticed that she was blushing.

"You're a bit too close," she said as she slowly slid down the throne as Ichigo leaned in more. "What made you so ... aggressive?"

"I haven't done anything."

"You are doing something right now." She slid some more.

He leaned in some more. "I don't believe I am," he said as his lips hovered over his forehead. Then suddenly, he pulled away. "See?" he said with a chuckle. He turned around, waved, and left the room, leaving a flustered and blushing Nel.

"I really hope he won't do that often," she muttered before standing up and leaving the throne room as well.

Kuchiki Yura never imagined her life to be this hectic. She was born a soul, but when Soul Society and the Human World became one, metaphorically, through communication and internet, she decided to become a human along with many others. Though this was frowned upon in earlier times, Central 46 decided to let those with enough money -middle class and upper classes- to become human if they wish so.

Though it took her some time to get her parent's approval, she got her permission on one condition.

She was forced become a Substitute Shinigami with her cousin, though her cousin was still in Gotei 13.

Somehow, she ended up joining the HAS, fighting hollows in Hueco Mundo as a human close combatant.

She was part of a siege not so long ago. The siege was a failure and she was captured. But now ... she was in love with a arrancar. A fiesty, sexy and a very lustful arrancar.

Grimmjow Jeagerjaques...

Strictly speaking, she was his prisoner. But he let her do whatever she wanted, aside from leaving the city. Over the course of a week, she found a lot of people -arrancars, humans, and shinigamis alike- that she quickly befriended.

Yona stuck her arms around Grimmjow's neck as they kissed each other passionately.

Pushed up against the wall, she was stuck between it and her body.

"I ... seriously hate you, Grimmjow," she growled lowly as Grimmjow smirked and chuckled.

"I love you too," he said, making her sigh and shiver from joy.

Oh, how she hates the Stockholm Syndrome...

Renji spasmed for 2 seconds before staring off into space.

Something felt a bit wrong for him...

"Sir..." A messenger came into the office of the 6th Division's lieutenant.

"What is it?" he asked him.

The messenger handed him the letter. "It's a ... letter from the HAS."

Renji quickly unfolded it and read its content.

As soon as he reached the middle, the letter fell out of his hand. Renji let his hand drop on his desk.

"...Yura..." he muttered as tears slipped streamed down.

"Vacie Magia #10:" a arrancar with long black mullet hair said. "Los tauro recortan."

Two small red light appeared each in Ichigo's hands and transformed themselves into tomahawks. Ichigo grabbed them and threw them at the sand practice target.

The two axes flew at a speed great as shunpo and sliced the target into three with two clean cuts. They flew further but disintegrated before they could hit the wall behind the target.

"Very impressive," Nel, who was watching from afar, said while clapping. "But I imagined that you would be able to do at least this much without breaking a sweat," she said.

"It feels like my energy is being drained when I used that," Ichigo said.

"Vacie Magia is a hollow form of kido that arrancars can use. We use the smae number system but power-wise, our #10's is equivalent to their Hado #30's," Nel explained.

"Huh, no wonder." There was a awkward silence in the air after he said that.

Both of them have been only using short talks to have a conversation with each other.

"Say Nel," he said, causing her to fluster for a second. "Let's spar," he said.

- 


	18. Chapter 18

Nel blinked. "What?" she asked, her voice resonating in the gym.

"Let's spar," he said.

"I couldn't spar with you!" Nel said, waving her hand in front of her. "Besides, you're too strong for me!" she complained.

Ichigo frowned. "Come on, please, just once?" he asked her with a grin. Then he relaxed and let himself to loose.

Two hours later...

By now Nel had released her zanpakuto but Ichigo only used his hands. 'I truly am what he used to be,' Ichigo thought as he gave a gentle blow to Nel. 'A monster.'

Nel, on the other hand, felt like taking on the biggest attacks she had yet faced in her life! A small blow from him was equivalent to Aizen's rising reiatsu ... only directed at her in physical form!

And then ... in the middle of all this ... he stopped.

"Why'd you stop?" she asked, feeling a bit lightheaded from taking all those attacks. This spar was really helping her.

"I... Your arm.." he looked devastated. "I didn't mean to..."

She blinked. "What about my arm?" she asked him, confused by his actions.

"...Just look," he said.

And she did.

There were bleeding really badly.

Ichigo was soon by her side, casting healing spells on her arms. She sealed her released form at this point.

"Sorry," he said, causing her to look at him. "I didn't mean to swing so hard... I forgot that my tap is equivalent to a sledgehammer..." he muttered.

Nel just stared at him for a moment before she smiled. "Aw..."

"What?" he said, looking up at her.

"You look so sweet like that."

He blushed.

Hundred and seventeen years old but he was still a teenager at heart.

"Oh shut up," he said as he got up. Then he froze for a moment or two, as if he was sensing something off the grid.

"Do I know you?" Ichigo growled angrily.

"Ho," a voice said, causing Nel to stand up. "I didn't think a monster like you would be able to detect me."

Vion stepped out of the shadow where Ichigo was staring at. "And you saw through my RC cloak," he smirked, much like how Gin does.

"You are?"

"Vion. Vion of the God-Eaters."

"Does Bachun approve of you being here, not enforcing your laws in the Northern Districts?" Nel asked.

"Who are they?"

"We are the God-Eaters, but today... we are here to ... convince you, Your Majesty."

"Convince me on what?"

"Lost Arrancar, your majesty, are a tragedy to our kind. They develop hysteria and unimaginable bloodlust that even the most bloodthirsty hollow would be appalled by what it would see. Not only that, Lost Arrancars become bipolar, go through mental breakdowns, and too many other disorders that you yourself have forbidden their presence. We plead you to exile this arrancar before it kills one of our citizens," he said with a bow.

Nel looked soft. It seemed to Ichigo that Nel saw what his kind was capable of.

"No."

"Pardon?"

"I will not exile him."

"Then your majesty ... we are you're death," Vion said as the rest of the twenty God-Eater emerged out of the shadow. "And you made it easy for us to kill the two of you by having a little spar with each other... Kill them," he said

The first ten jumped out into the air, And Ichigo charged a black cero. "Get back behind me," he said, which Nel did comply without complaining; she knew that she was too weak at the moment to fight them.

The God-Eaters were expert fighters.

They were trained for years under the strict dogma of the Morgan Warriors.

They were experienced. It was they who would often raided neighboring cities under Bachun's order and subjugated them to this city's control.

They were merciless. They would kill a innocent baby without a twitch if they were ordered to.

But they never expected something horrible as the man standing in front of him.

Ichigo fired his cero and in a instant, two of the ten was a burning corpse in the rock-hard ground of the gym.

What the God-Eaters were surprised of, however, was what Ichigo did with his cero.

He grabbed it.

He grabbed cero as if it was a cero. It looks more like a giant black fan at the moment, but he still grabbed a cero.

"It's not easy, you know," Ichigo said as smoke rose from his hand. "It burns."

"Kill him!" Vion shouted.

Ichigo quickly killed off the remaining eight near him and Nel with his cero, disintegrating them into bits, and then threw it at Vion, who dodged.

"Boy... this again?" Ichigo said as he charged up a bala at his hands and fired.

Three God-Eaters took the hit and fell down, unconscious from the shock.

Vion was the first to strike out in an attempt to kill.

And it was he that was the first to go by Ichigo's hand.

Vion was scared half to death when someone actually grabbed a cero. It was known widely that Neliel could stop a cero for a second or two in a complete halt, but not grab it.

The worst thing was watching that same cero kill his subordinates in a single sweep of the hand.

Not only that, the bala that he fired was too strong. His subordinates were trained to withstand shot like that and fight on. One shot was enough to knock them out!

He was scared.

He couldn't think.

He just pulled his zanpakuto out.

And he felt a hand punch through his stomach and his spine.

'S-Shit,' he thought before he went limp and died.

Ichigo tossed the body away and put his hands together.

"Vacie Magia #2: Lazo Blanco!" he shouted and from his hands, white ropes appeared. Without speaking or grunting, Ichigo threw them at the incoming God-Eaters, and the ropes automatically bound themselves around them and pinned them to the ground. Arrancars tried to run away but they seemed to be stuck there.

'I didn't think it would be this strong... I mean I did just learn it... right?'

It took Ichigo less than five minutes to round them all up.

After the battle, he turned to Nel, who had watched him dig through flesh with his teeth and claws.

"You seriously need a guardian, Nel," he said.

"I-I know," she replied.

"..." he didn't speak for a while. "Okay, I decided."

"Huh?"

"I'll be your guardian, 24/7."

He grinned.

She blushed.

Augh, she hated this tight knot in her-

Wait, 24/7?

- 


	19. Chapter 19

Nel flustered and blushed. "W-What?" she yelped unattractively in her opinion, though Ichigo didn't seem to mind.

"I guard you 24/7. That includes your bedroom as well as well as your bathroom," Ichigo said. And then, "Wait, I'm going to go through mental breakdowns? That doesn't sound good..."

"Ichigo..." Nel said.

Ichigo abruptly broke his softer, hurt face into a idiotic grin. "Come on, let's go. We better get these guys into interrogation, no?" he smiled.

She smiled back without a word and stood up.

...Only to sink back down.

"What's wrong?" he asked her.

"I-I think ... maybe your power demonstration took some courage out of me," she laughed nervously.

He sighed. "Can't be helped," he said as he knelt, scooped her up, and stood back up. She was now in his arms in bridal-style.

Her face flushed hotter and redder than before. "W-What are you doing?" she squealed. "Let go of-"

"Nel-sama-!" Rudobon came to the scene, screaming with another arrancar dressed in similar black Espada uniform. Both of them halted, looked around, and froze when they saw Nel in Ichigo's arms.

Ichigo turned around and looked at them. It was Rudobon. "Oh, I remember you!" he smiled. "You're the guy that tried to kill me not so long ago," he added. "Wait, that's a century ago. Nevermind!"

"Your Majesty, is that a-"

"Yes, he's the Lost Arrancar that I let into the city. And he saved me from assasin there," Nel said and the two arrancars turned their head to the God-Eaters bound by vacie magia. "And Bachun is also involved."

"Your Majesty," the second arrancar spoke.

"What is it, Skullak?" she asked.

"Are you saying that this is a rebellion?"

"Of a sort."

"Then-"

"I know. As my tactician/general, you could take care of Bachun," she said.

"Yes, my lady." With that Nel and Ichigo vanished.

Then Rudobon turned to the royal assailants along with Skullak. "Should we?"

"Yes, we should," Rudobon said as he drew out his zanpakuto. "But let's just slash at them until they are at Death's door."

Then Nel sighed. "What's wrong?" Ichigo asked as he took off in sonido, leaving Rudobon to deal with the God-Eaters. They came to Nel's bedroom and he put her down on the bed.

"It's ... It's just that there had been too much bloodshed over the years," she said as she sat up. "Sometimes, I just don't know what to do," she added.

"Is that so?" Ichigo said as he took a seat next to the bed. "But tell me," he said.

"Hmm?"

"Did you forget that both of us tattered your clothes really badly, so badly, that ... I can see everything?"

Nel looked down and blushed.

Her breasts were totally exposed to the open, clothes barely covered her thighs and crouch, and .. the rest.

She squeaked and tried to use the bed sheet as a cover.

Ichigo only laughed. "Go get shower, Nel. We both stink," he said before standing up and leaving the room.

Even after he left the room, Nel was under the cover, blushing. "Ugh... how does me make me feel so serious and then make me so embarrassed?"

Ichigo looked at Bachun and his minions who ll now were on their knees before him.

"What do you want, pig?" one of the God-Eaters growled at Ichigo as the said man moved towards the throne and sat on it. Bachun narrowed his eyes.

"Vion told Nel about some ... troubles a Lost Arrancar has," Ichigo said as he got into a comfortable position on the throne. "And I do feel extremely uncomfortable about it," he addded.

"Hah! You're entire existence is meant to become a sociopath!" Bachun chuckled.

Ichigo stood up. "Is there anyway to ... correct this mind?" he asked.

"There isn't. But even if we knew, we won't tell you," he said.

Ichigo made a v-shaped smile. "Well, then. You are all," he said as he pulled out his scythe-like zanpakuto from midair. "No longer needed."

"Have fun in hell."

The entire cell where Ichigo had executed the God-Eaters and their leaders were bloody after he was done.

But he had no most emotionless face. His eyes wide but nothing in their amber-brown depth; it was like looking at a doll who now has a mind of its own.

Then Ichigo began singing.

"Can I kill you my dear friend?"

"Let us end your miserable life."

"I would love to play with your gut."

"I am going crazy," he said the last line. Then he let out a high-pitched laugh/cackle that rang through the dungeons of White Plateau. Like the last line said, he was going crazy, and there was no way to stop it.

A tear escaped his eyes. What should he do? He wanted to be with Nel -a comparable new feeling- but he knew he would end up killing her if his mind continues to degenerate.

He made a sad smile.

One year.

It would take twice that time to drive him completely mad.

So one year with her.

- 


	20. Chapter 20

Day 1

Ichigo's POV

The Execution Cell

Two years before I go nuts.

Where did I get that?

Oh yeah, one of the God-Eaters were shouting something about it before I kill him...

I yawned and swung my bloody scythe over my shoulder. I better start that year, and stop wasting my time.

Nel's POV

The Throne Room

I couldn't believe my eyes.

"Are you stating the truth, Skullk?" I asked my tactician general.

The arrancar before her fidgeted a little. "Yes, my lady," he said. "The Cas, Grum, Jiupulas... and many other cities have formed an alliance and are sending an army here," he repeated his report that he got from his infiltrator. "I believe that there are at least twenty thousand arrancars of adjuchas-level heading our way with twenty vast lordes-levels as their leaders."

I felt like I was going to drown. It was the end of my city and her people. And I couldn't do anything about it.

"How many of our soldiers are active?" I asked him.

"We have five thousand still active and another two thousand in reserves," he reported. "But most of them are at adjuchas-level, my lady. Even if we combine-"

I stopped him by raising my hand.

"What about Ichigo?" I asked him.

His eyes widened and his face paled. "Your Majesty," he began with the tone which he uses only when he knew that it was either suicide or useless. "I do not believe that a single arrancar -given, a Lost Arrancar- could stop a army of this portion! Even during the time of the first kings of Hueco Mundo, an army of this size easily gave control of this part of the world to their master!"

I sighed. I would have to send him out into the battlefield. Then I drew in a breath silently. "Well, I say that it's better to try and die than surrender and end up as a slave," I said and stood up. "Mobilize the army, Skullak. We're going to war."

Skullak kneeled. "Yes, you're majesty!"

Soul Society...

"Ugh, I'm dressed up like an arrancar," Renji muttered, feeling the fake mask on his face that covered his eyes and forehead.

"At least we won't have to do this for a long time. This will be a quick recon," his partner said. His partner wore a black and red mask only revealed pair of amber eyes. The rest of his face and head was covered up.

Renji turned around and looked at him. "Do you ever let your hair out?"

"Nope," he repied nonchalantly. "I see no need to."

"Huh..." Renji muttered as he approached the Senkaimon. "What's your name again?"

"... Tsukisimo. Tsukisimo Ban."

Hueco Mundo

Ichigo walked down the halls with his still-bloody scythe over his shoulder and a hard, frowning face that scared any of the officials, guards, and civilians he met on the way.

He didn't pay attention to them.

The only thing in his mind was Nel.

Nel. Nel. Nel.

All he wanted to do was just think about her.

He couldn't get her out of his mind. It was like she hypnotized him to only think about her, which he knew she didn't.

He also knew that Nel was busy with all the affairs of her city and that she had no time for herself. That didn't go well with what he wanted.

"Kurosaki-san!"

Ichigo turned around and saw the tactician general heading his way with some of his own men behind him. For some reason, all of them had armors on them.

"Yes?" he said nonchalantly.

"Nel-sama has ordered that all of the soldiers get mobilized. Now, you declared that you will be her guard so-"

"Oh, you heard that in the gym? Or did you hear it from her?" Ichigo asked, not really interested about what Skullak was trying to say.

"I heard it from her majesty. But we need to get you armed-"

"Why would I need to be armed when I have my zanpakuto and my hierro?" Ichigo asked.

"Becuase these-"

"Never mind," Ichigo muttered as he walked past him and his escorts. "I'll see you later."

Skullak stared after the man who had just ignored him and couldn't help but feel extremely disrespected. Or was that man being casual with him?

Ichigo arrived in the Throne Room where Nel stood over a large table with three other arrancars. He recognized all of them. Rudobon wore a blue and white military uniform similar to European uniforms around 19th century. Grimmjow wore a similar one except his was red. Camus was there as well, but he wore his usual attire of overcloak.

And then, the door shut behind Ichigo.

Nel looked up when she heard the doors shut behind Ichigo. For a moment, she was horrified by the blood on his ... half-naked body and scythe.

"What?" Ichigo asked, thick as usual.

"Nothing," she said as she looked back down. And then she looked back up. "Skullak didn't give you a uniform?"

"I refused and walked past him."

"...That's rude, Ichigo."

"And I'm crazy."

"So what are you all doing here?" Ichigo asked.

"We got a information that the neighboring arrancar cities have formed an alliance to bring us down," Grimmjow said. "Personally, I like the way that they are taking us on."

"Silence, Grimmjow. This is a serious matter," Rudobon scolded his fellow general.

Ichigo yawned. "Is that really tha big of a issue?" he asked them.

"Ten thousand adjuchas-level is a serious matter-"

"-Not." Ichigo finished. All four of them stared at him.

Then as if on Que, the tip of his scythe broke apart and fell to the white marble floor.

A shiver ran up everyone's spine aside from Ichigo, who did not know what that meant.

Ichigo ignored their horrified stares and shrugged. "Hey, do you know if there are some freelancers around here?" Ichigo asked them.

"Freelancers?" Camus asked.

"Yeah, like mercenaries," Ichigo said.

"The Morgan Warriors filled that role but they are at a state of chaos with the horrible execution you brought upon their strongest," Nel said, her voice very serious.

Ichigo groaned. "I guess I'll have to go clean up the mess I created," he said as he turned around and opened the door.

"Where are you going?" Nel asked.

Ichigo turned his head slightly to look at her. "I'm going to do something VERY stupid," he grinned.

- 


End file.
